Nature Done Wright

Incorporating the Celery Farm and Screech Owl Companion blogs

April 24, 2015

“Duck Enough to Fight”: The Video Compilation


Here is a video compilation of the Wood Duck vs. American Crow action on Thursday, April 23, at the Celery Farm.

The attacks and counter-measures went on for a half-hour. At one point, four crows were on or flying around the nest box.

The video is a 3 minutes and 40 seconds, and it is sequential.

The music isn't my favorite, but it I figured it was better than nothing, and easily switched off (just click the "speaker" icon).

If anyone can explain what is going on in the last frame, I'd sure like to know.

It appears as though there's a duck already in the nest.

 

2 comments

  • John Pastore
    11 years ago Reply

    James, these are a great set of pictures. Well done!!!

  • julie mccall
    11 years ago Reply

    Wow! What a great series of photos!
    As for your duck-already-in-there, perhaps it is due to this: “Egg-dumping, or ‘intraspecific brood parasitism’ is common in Wood Ducks—females visit other Wood Duck cavities, lay eggs in them, and leave them to be raised by the other female. This may have been made more common by the abundance and conspicuousness of artificial nest boxes; in some areas it happens in more than half of all nests. Individual females typically lay 10-11 eggs per clutch, but some very full nests have been found containing 29 eggs, the result of egg-dumping.”
    – from http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/lifehistory
    So I would speculate that either there’s already a double-clutch in there, or there soon will be. Who knows who got their first or who will be doing the incubating…
    As for what she’s doing in the last frame, I haven’t the slightest.

Leave a comment.

2 comments

  • John Pastore
    11 years ago Reply

    James, these are a great set of pictures. Well done!!!

  • julie mccall
    11 years ago Reply

    Wow! What a great series of photos!
    As for your duck-already-in-there, perhaps it is due to this: “Egg-dumping, or ‘intraspecific brood parasitism’ is common in Wood Ducks—females visit other Wood Duck cavities, lay eggs in them, and leave them to be raised by the other female. This may have been made more common by the abundance and conspicuousness of artificial nest boxes; in some areas it happens in more than half of all nests. Individual females typically lay 10-11 eggs per clutch, but some very full nests have been found containing 29 eggs, the result of egg-dumping.”
    – from http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Duck/lifehistory
    So I would speculate that either there’s already a double-clutch in there, or there soon will be. Who knows who got their first or who will be doing the incubating…
    As for what she’s doing in the last frame, I haven’t the slightest.

Leave your comment

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